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Starcraft 2 - Will it run? megathread

Mac Model: 15" Macbook Pro 2.66ghz i7

Operating System: Snow leopard latest update

Processor Speed: 2.66

RAM:4GB

Video card: 330M 512mb

Screen resolution: 1680x1050

Default settings: High

Modifications to default settings: Lowered multiple settings

Playability: Really bad.. I'm actually really disappointed. I've had to lower shaders to low, disable filtering and reflections, and lower texture quality. Game looks like WC3 now. Still get jittery frame rates.

Question: Has anyone heard anything about patches that may optimize the OSX build?
 
Mac Model: Mac Pro 3,1

Processor Speed: 2.8GHz Octo

RAM: 10GB DDR2

Video card: ATi 4870 (512MB)

Screen resolution: 1680x1050

Operating System: 10.6.4

Default settings: High

Modifications to default settings: Everything to Ultra instead of High except Texture Quality because the graphics card requires 1 GB if i wanted Ultra. It will noticeably reduce in FPS if I switch to Ultra.

Playability: Awesome
 
bobpensik said:
Mac Model: Mac Pro 3,1

Processor Speed: 2.8GHz Octo

RAM: 10GB DDR2

Video card: ATi 4870 (512MB)

Screen resolution: 1680x1050

Operating System: 10.6.4

Default settings: High

Modifications to default settings: Everything to Ultra instead of High except Texture Quality because the graphics card requires 1 GB if i wanted Ultra. It will noticeably reduce in FPS if I switch to Ultra.

Playability: Awesome
Click to expand...
What? How is this possible? We have nearly the same computers except for my processor being faster, and I can barely handle Low settings...

Are you running the game in OSX?
 
pdpfilms said:
What? How is this possible? We have nearly the same computers except for my processor being faster, and I can barely handle Low settings...

Are you running the game in OSX?
Click to expand...

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/145754783

It might be your video card. Almost every issue on that list has to do with Nvidia cards... he has an ATI. I also have an ATI card and a MacPro 1,1 and the game runs fine for me.
 
Late 2009 27" iMac
OSX 10.6.4
2.8 GHz i7
8 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4850
2560x1440 resolution
Default settings High

Haven't checked the framerates yet, but I naturally cranked all settings to Ultra the first time I played and it was definitely quite clunky. Dropping it all down to High makes it run quite seamlessly. I'll check actual framerates when I get back home.

Turning v-sync off made the game horrible to watch. V-sync is mandatory if you ask me, and I hate it when PC games/consoles don't use this.

Definitely adds more cred to the nVidia drivers = crap theory.
 
Wang Foolio said:
Late 2009 27" iMac
OSX 10.6.4
2.8 GHz i7
8 GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4850
2560x1440 resolution
Default settings High

Haven't checked the framerates yet, but I naturally cranked all settings to Ultra the first time I played and it was definitely quite clunky. Dropping it all down to High makes it run quite seamlessly. I'll check actual framerates when I get back home.

Turning v-sync off made the game horrible to watch. V-sync is mandatory if you ask me, and I hate it when PC games/consoles don't use this.

Definitely adds more cred to the nVidia drivers = crap theory.
Click to expand...


My early 2010 Mac Book Pro can run ultra settings and high settings (maxxed everything) on everything and it runs smooth. The only issue is the heat at max settings for me!! Try running with/o anything on in the background
 
A post on the battle.net forum summed it up nearly perfectly for me:

Everything works brilliantly I can get good FPS on high until -- cut scene. Once it goes to a cut scene everything bogs down and it's unplayable. If I exit and relaunch everything is fine, cut scene is perfect, next level is perfect. Next cut scene comes -- gotta restart again.​

My settings:
Mac Model: Mac Pro 3,1
Operating System: 10.6.4
Processor Speed: 2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-core Intel Xeon
RAM: 18GB
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT - 512mb VRAM
Screen resolution: recommended, 1600x1000 (on my 2560x1600 display)
Default settings: high
Modifications to default settings: none

It runs like a turd as soon as I get into a cut-scene just like the poster above said.
 
Mac Model: first gen aluminum iMac

Operating System: 10.6.4

Processor Speed: 2.4ghz

RAM: 2gb

Video card: ATI Radeon HD 2600

Screen resolution:

Default settings: Low

Modifications to default settings: 3d portraits

Playability: runs fine

Sure it's set to low, but it runs fine thus far. No problems during cut scenes either.
 
nelsencaleb said:
My early 2010 Mac Book Pro can run ultra settings and high settings (maxxed everything) on everything and it runs smooth. The only issue is the heat at max settings for me!! Try running with/o anything on in the background
Click to expand...

Cap your framerate. There's actually a bug in Starcraft II where the cantina doesn't have a framerate cap, so your GPU goes fullbore trying to render as many frames as possible. Even my Mac Mini can crank 110FPS (under Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit). Some people have fried their GPUs because of this. Blizzard acknowledges it as a bug.

Add these entries to "Variables.txt" which is in /Users/<username>/Documents/Blizzard/Starcraft II/ (or find it with Spotlight)

frameratecap=60
frameratecapglue=30

Should significantly cut down on heat, and help preserve battery life when not plugged in. You don't need to render more than 60fps anyhow.
 
mrfoof82 said:
Hardware
  • Mid-2010 Mac Mini (MacMini4,1)
  • Intel Core2 Duo, 2.66GHz ("Penryn" P8800, 3MB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB)
  • 8GB PC3-8500 DDR3 Memory
  • 500GB Seagate Momentus XT, 7200rpm, 32MB cache, 4GB SLC NAND
  • nVidia GeForce 320M, 256MB VRAM (shared memory)
Click to expand...

Thanks for this & everyone else's Mini experiences! Gives me a bit of hope (plus, sounds like no Mac natively is having great luck here, so the "Mini discount" is maybe a little less than normal).
 
On my late 2008 mbp its playable on medium, but the game doesn't seem to run very well on OS X, i think its apple's fault, not Blizzard's. 10.6.4 seems to have bad drivers for nvidia products.
 
Mac Pro 1,1 (late 2006)
4 core 2.66GHz
8GB RAM
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
Mac OS X 10.6.4

Resolution 1680x1050

Performance is very good at 'high' setting except that the game experiences massive slowdowns after almost every loading screen which render the game completely unplayable. To remedy this and get the game running smoothly again I have to quit the game and relaunch it between every level. This is really reducing my enjoyment of the game. It is quite obviously a bug in either Starcraft or Mac OS X. Whichever it is, you may want to hold off purchasing the game until whoever is responsible fixes it.
 
Will it run on mine?

Model Name: MacBook (2008 Unibody)
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
 
gpjiki said:
Model Name: MacBook (2008 Unibody)
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Click to expand...

I have a system very similar to yours (as well as the Mac Pro stated above). The game runs well on low settings and is somewhat playable on medium settings -- although I'd probably stick with low settings.
 
Hans Brix said:
Mac Model: Newest MBP 13"

Operating System: 10.6.4

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

RAM: 4 GB

Video card: 320m

Screen resolution: 1280x800

Default settings: As low as they can go

Modifications to default settings: N/A
Click to expand...

I have this, on 10.6.3. Runs fair-poor for me on default med settings. Will bootcamp increase performance?

I've never run bootcamp before, will i have to search for drivers manually or does it work right away? Will windows drivers work better with my nVidia card?
 
Mac Model: Macbook Pro 1,1

Operating System: Mac OS 10.6.4

Processor Speed: 2.16 GHz

RAM: 2GB

Video card: ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256MB

Screen resolution: 1440x900

Default settings: Low

Modifications to default settings:

Playability: Plays pretty smoothly. Haven't done campaigns (played beta, retail version coming in next week), but there is a noticeable drop in frame rate during big battles (1v1, ~120/200 for each team).
 
All of you with moderm Macs should simply bootcamp SC2 and avoid all the grief ...


Back in Beta I noticed a significant drop in performance when playing via OSX vs playing via Windows 7 (2009 Core i7 IMac with Radeon 4850)
 
I'm starting to believe the nvidia drivers = crap theory too. I've been playing for the past few days and I was playing with some of my friends with 2 year old laptops and they load the game faster then I do. We were comparing FPS in game and they had faster FPS as well. Ugh. :rolleyes:
 
Kallel00 said:
All of you with moderm Macs should simply bootcamp SC2 and avoid all the grief ...


Back in Beta I noticed a significant drop in performance when playing via OSX vs playing via Windows 7 (2009 Core i7 IMac with Radeon 4850)
Click to expand...

I agree with this statement. On my 2006 Mac Pro I can run on Ultra settings under Windows 7 at about the same performance level as Medium or High settings on Mac OS X. On Windows I also don't have to deal with the problem of restarting the game after every loading screen (see my previous post).
 
gpjiki said:
Model Name: MacBook (2008 Unibody)
Model Identifier: MacBook5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
Click to expand...

Hey, I actually have your same exact system. I was going to post my experience with SC2, but I might as well just reply to yours...

Under that configuration, SC2 was laggy in OSX 10.6.4 under all low settings to the point of almost unplayable (in my opinion). I then doubled the ram, and SC2 was barely smooth under all low settings and playable. Then, I installed Windows 7 via Bootcamp, upgraded the Nvidia 9400M drivers, and SC2 runs flawlessly under low settings (60+ FPS under 2v2 settings), and pretty decently under medium settings. I've only played single vs. AI and multi-player so far.

*edit* sorry, I have the 2.0 ghz version of the unibody macbook, not 2.4. so it's not the same exact system.
 
OP: if it hasn't been mentioned yet, but even still add to the original post that you can use an in-game FPS counter to check your fps so we get more accurate numbers sense playability is very subjective...

press CONTROL + ALT/OPTION + F to get the fps counter up on the top left of the screen.

Mac Model: 2010 13" MBP with 80GB Intel G2 SSD

Operating System: Windows 7 32bit

Processor Speed: 2.4Ghz C2D

RAM: 4GB DDR3

Video card: 320m 256MB

Screen resolution: 1280x800

Default settings: shaders high, reflections on, models high, post fx medium, medium on most everything else, 2D portraits, high movies

Modifications to default settings: shadows turned off =0 throughout the variables.txt

Playability: very good get a bout 40FPS avg with shaders on high, with it on medium and shadows off, during campaign I get 50-55 FPS.
----
OSX
shaders medium, shadows=0, most else on lows or off, movies high, 2D portraits
1280x800

avg 20-30FPS on campaign missions.
did a 4v4 today and avg 30+ on multiplayer.

it seems campaign is more intensive. I find myself playing on Win7 more but due to overall smoothness and mouse feels better on windows side (Razer Orochi). I don't mind OSX though especially since MP feels good and medium shaders works well. I cannot do low shaders lol, looks bad. I have the framerate capped, but forgot to turn on smc fan and my GPU temps maxed at 88C via HWmonitor.. seems a bit eh?
 
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